Cargo casualties

cargo onboard, will terminals and shoreside decision makers be able to correctly assess the situation and deal with the problem? Will shore-based entities be able to carry out the procedures and handle the situation before it escalates into a fire scenario?

Regrettably, there are examples of reluctance and bad interdictions taken from the shore, leading to escalating situations and sometimes fatal accidents on-board.

The fact that container ships enter smaller ports with less experienced first responder agencies may mean less adequate responses and lack of availability of fire-fighting equipment such as tugs equipped with water cannons.

And in major ports, even with highly trained and experienced shoreside responders, the vast myriad of products carried aboard containers on container ships will mean that sometimes a novel situation will be presented that will challenge even highly experienced personnel.

SHIPPER’S PERSPECTIVE

Container shipping starts with selling and buying cargo which triggers the need for transportation. Generally, shippers and receivers have an interest in making transportation work smoothly.

However, profit margins can be improved if transportation costs are reduced and yet packing, securing and declaring cargo correctly is a complicated issue, with all steps presenting essential costs and demands.

Shippers making errors, deliberately or not, when loading dangerous cargo into containers is one of the biggest challenges for container shipping. This comes inherently with how the trade works. Container carriers rely on shippers to load, secure and declare cargo correctly and thereby make it safe for carriage. Mistakes and shortcuts are made too often, and in some cases, the consequences are severe.

Research has revealed that alarmingly high numbers of dangerous goods, like batteries and chemicals, are shipped with inadequate securing and with the wrong cargo declaration provided to the carrier.

In such situations, carriers are unable to designate safe stowage positions to mitigate the risk of exposure to heat sources or external physical impacts in these scenarios.

STACK COLLAPSES

Mis-declaration of cargo weights and securing of heavy cargo inside containers represent a great risk to the stability and integrity of the stow on board.

It is a fact that 2020/21 was a bad season for stack collapses and containers lost at sea. Several of the largest incidents we have seen happened within a matter of a few months. In 2022 so far, we have not seen as severe a level of individual accidents. But, the number of cases concerning containers being lost in stack collapses at sea has been high again.

Causative factors range from heavy weather to malfunction of securing equipment, wrongfully secured cargo within containers, error in weight and stability calculations and lack of maintenance of boxes or container sockets.

The state of the container shipping market may affect this type of occurrence. We have also seen ships losing boxes overboard while waiting at anchorage or when slow steaming to avoid/time congested ports. Also, a relatively new feature of this year’s portfolio of lost containers at sea cases is bulk ships fitted to carry containers that are also losing boxes.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS

The environmental impact of a large-scale container ship fire may be quite obvious, but, perhaps these impacts are not reported and reviewed in as much detail as they should be.

Wreck removals such as the X-press Pearl or the SSL Kolkata show quite clearly the damage to the environment

and not only because of air pollution or leakage of different cargo substances into the ocean.

However, certain cargoes are more problematic once they escape the container.

Several stack collapse cases have caused difficult cargo spills of seemingly inert products in different places of the world. Floating pieces of cargo such as plastic toys, garments or sneakers will easily follow the ocean currents and be difficult to sort out before they end up on shore.

Plastic nurdles illustrate this issue well. Plastic nurdles, or pre-production plastic pellets, is the raw material for almost everything made of plastic. One single shipping container may carry 1 billion of these small lentil-sized plastic items and once they escape after an incident, it is impossible to locate and clean all of them. Some will end up spread throughout an entire ecosystem.

Following the total loss of the container ship X-press Pearl off Sri Lanka, billions of nurdles were lost and partly ended up on the Sri Lanka coastline – a disastrous spill of microplastic.

Several flag states have now submitted proposals to the IMO for stricter regulation for safe transporation of this particular cargo. It is positive to see that regulators seem to be willing to address this issue, but it will take time.

Voluntary, market-driven solutions by the commercial parties involved in this trade should be initiated and explored in more depth, to come up with more urgent interim solutions to reduce the risk of spills.

It is a fact that 2020/21 was a bad season for stack

collapses and containers lost at sea. Several of the largest incidents we have seen happened within a matter of a few months. In 2022 so far, we have not seen as severe a level of individual accidents.

But, the number of cases concerning containers being lost in stack collapses at sea has been high again.

LOOKING AHEAD

Supply chains, which affect people’s everyday lives, are vulnerable to disruption and casualties, with shipping and container logistics playing an important part as the transportation link.

Risks and challenges for the container shipping must be identified and dealt with now. Safe transport of dangerous cargo in containers is key, but ships will have to be prepared to deal with difficult situations like fires and losses of cargo at sea.

Regulators and authorities play an important part. But it is arguable that results can be achieved more quickly by way of voluntary agreement for adequate response and cooperation taken between vessel, salvors, terminals and onshore decision makers.